What a black Secretary of Defense has to put up with. Appalling. Also appalling. I think of all the black soldiers lynched in their uniforms when they came home in our history by those who could not handle a black man in uniform. I think of all the black soldiers who in overseas theaters had [...]
Critics of the D.C. Statehood Bill, which passed the House on April 22, rightly object that it cannot properly override the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution. The House Bill creates utterly unnecessary problems under the Amendment by proposing a greatly reduced “District”, encompassing the White House, the Capitol and Supreme Court buildings, and the National [...]
On 22nd April 2022, Earth Day, the Escazu Agreement enters into operation, marking a significant moment for transparent and participatory decision-making in environmental governance. The Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean 2018 (Escazu Agreement) was adopted in 2018 to “promote environmental democracy, [...]
I have been taking on dictators, tyrants, and thugs for decades, holding them accountable and making them pay for the atrocities they cause. Just ask former President Charles Taylor who now sits in a maximum-security prison in the United Kingdom for aiding and abetting international crimes. My signature is on his indictment. Additionally, I have [...]
In April 2020, Amazon released a comedy series called “Upload.” The show extrapolates a future in which technological advances have led to the successful simulation of human consciousness in silico. This technology is used by companies to “upload” dying individuals into digital worlds where they can “live” in perpetuity. When uploaded, human consciousness is converted [...]
“It must not be forgotten that it is perhaps more dangerous for a nation to allow itself to be conquered intellectually than by arms.” -Guillaume Apollinaire, The New Spirit and the Poets (1917) Whenever Israel finds itself in the midst of major conflict with Hamas, each side seeks to defend itself in military and legal [...]
In almost the whole world, distrust of political institutions delegitimizes their representation, leaving us without a shelter that protects us in the name of common interest. The rupture in the relationship between the rulers and the ruled makes this conflict even more profound, with devastating consequences that arise from the inability to deal with the [...]
“In the end, we still depend upon creatures of our own making.” -Goethe, Faust On core matters of national security, American analysts should think in terms of intellectual and legal criteria. Ignoring the day-to-day banalities of national and international politics, these strategists and policy-makers ought continuously to bear in mind that such primary standards may [...]
After the age of accountability in the 1990’s and early 21st century, there are certain lessons that have been learned since then. One of those lessons is that the beast of impunity must be faced down…always. International courts seeking justice for atrocity crimes in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone were beacons of light [...]
On April 20, 2021, a jury convicted former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for murdering George Floyd. Following the trial, Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw reflected that “until the very moment the verdict was read, it was an entirely open question whether, to paraphrase the Supreme Court’s decision in Dred Scott, Black people had rights that anyone [...]
